- Details
We’re delighted to report that Foxlowe Films will be screening David Attenborough’s acclaimed new film Ocean on Tuesday, 30 September. Released on the date of his 99th birthday, it takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing.
Stunning, immersive cinematography showcases the wonder of life under the seas and exposes the realities and challenges facing our ocean as never-before-seen, from destructive fishing techniques to mass coral reef bleaching. Yet the story is one of optimism, with Attenborough pointing to inspirational stories from around the world to deliver his greatest message: the ocean can recover to a glory beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen. “If we save the sea, we save our world” Attenborough.
Online tickets are now available and they can also be bought in the Foxlowe café. We recommend booking early, as this wonderful film is bound to sell out quickly. For details and how to book, go to the Foxlowe website.
- Details
It is a time of change with many different messages coming from politicians, scientists, social media pundits and industry. Who can you trust when there seem to be so many conflicting views on the impact of our changing climate, biodiversity, health implications and how to balance this with the increasing cost of living / job insecurity?
The rise of populist leaders in USA and here in the UK seem to suggest people believe their mantra of ‘drill, baby, drill’ and ‘net-zero hoax’. We know these leaders are funded by the fossil fuel industry – remember the gift of a $400m luxury jet from Qatar and Reform’s £2.3 m from lobby groups, climate deniers and other fossil fuel businesses.
We have looked at these changes from afar until now, but now it is real, here in Staffordshire. Reform have taken control of our County Council and have already implemented changes including the scrapping of the Cabinet role for Environment and Climate Change. Across the border in Derbyshire, the entire Climate Change, Biodiversity and Carbon Reduction committee has been scrapped, with the new leader of the County council telling the BBC that ‘net zero is not a priority.. the net zero agenda is costing every single person in this country a lot of money. Why do we need to burden the people?"
Over recent years, we have developed a closer relationship with our County Council at both councillor and officer level. We are currently working with officers on schemes that include bringing back unwanted bikes into use for vulnerable members of our community via our Repair Café volunteers, joint working on projects for the Climate Commission and on water quality.
We and many other groups in Staffordshire and the wider community are concerned that our County Council may stall in their essential work to protect our environment, or worse still, abandon the essential work across so many areas including flood prevention, reducing emissions, education, food security, renewable energy and active travel.
Read more: Changing Times – a personal note from our Co-ordinator
- Details
The Reform Party’s overwhelming victory in the recent Staffordshire County Council elections has cast a deep shadow over efforts to act on Climate, Nature and the Environment. Reform’s national stance on Climate Action is well known – their manifesto explicitly calls for Net Zero to be ditched as an ‘expensive waste of time’. According to DeSmog, 92% of the party’s donations since 2019 has come from sources associated with the fossil fuel industry or climate deniers.
As has already been well-publicised, Nigel Farage has already said that anyone with climate (or diversity) in their job title should be ‘looking for another role’. With Reform likely to use Staffordshire as a laboratory for their ideas on local government, first signs aren’t good; there is no Cabinet member to replace Simon Tagg, who previously had responsibility for Climate Change and the Environment.
Early signs from other Reform-controlled counties indicate a similar abandonment of climate priorities. Staffordshire has so far worked through a number of broad channels: through policies including its own Climate Plan, through supporting community groups, and in co-operation with the county’s districts and boroughs.
The latter work includes sectors such as EV charging points – while SMDC has installed some of its own at key locations such as Moorlands House, the County is responsible for a wider roll out though the centrally-funded LEVI (Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) scheme.
Community-oriented programmes such as Waste Savvy Staffs (with whom MCA works closely) and the Staffordshire Green Network may also come under scrutiny. The future of the Staffordshire Sustainability Board may also be in doubt as may the Community Climate Fund which has historically provided the core funding for the HuG festival as well as supported the Repair Café (via Charlotte Atkins, no longer at Stafford, of course).
- Details
HuG, our free entry Moorlands Green Arts Festival, celebrates its fifth anniversary when it returns to the Foxlowe on Saturday 28 June from 10.00am to 4.00pm.
This year we are celebrating all things hedgerows and verges. MCA is a partner in the Nature in Your Neighbourhood project, along with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Keele University, OUTSIDE Arts and SMDC, which supports communities in the Staffordshire Moorlands improve green spaces where they live and monitor habitat health.
As ever there will be a wide range of stalls showcasing a variety of arts and crafts using different materials, all produced with an environmental ethos.
- Details
Faced with the poor and sometimes worsening state of their rivers, ordinary citizens can feel powerless. Who to call, how to get remedial action? Is it the water company’s fault, shouldn’t the Environment Agency be on the case? And it can be difficult – there are so many potential causes of problems, ranging from farming run-off, failing sewage infrastructure through to species invasion. The list flows on... But there is a way that ordinary residents can act – through the fast developing and exciting world of citizen science.
Across the country, concerned residents have turned to monitoring the state of the watercourses they hold dear, presenting the information in a compelling way and, in some cases, forcing officialdom to act. The best-known instances are those in the Wye Valley, where intensive poultry farming is the chief culprit, or the Windrush in the Cotswolds, where sewage spills have literally turned stretches of a once-beautiful river into a brown soup.
The problems in the Moorlands are not yet quite as dramatic, but they are real. As is the case across the country, all rivers fail the overall test of good health because of the presence of forever chemicals. But beneath that catch-all chemical failure, the picture in the Moorlands is more mixed, as the map in the Rivers Trust’s State of Our Rivers Report 2024 shows.
Of the rivers in the district, only the Manifold largely classes as ‘good’. The Dove, the Dane, the Churnet, the Tean and the Blithe typically come in as a blend of ‘moderate’ to ‘poor’. But there is a lag in these data: while some figures have been updated in the interim, the last full review by the Environment Agency was in 2022. The next is expected this year.
Read more: Spotlight Winter 2025 – What can WE do about river pollution...
- Details
Issues around water have never been far from the headlines this year, with the flood-related deaths in Valencia just the most tragic (thousands of deaths from climate-related events in poorer countries go less reported).
Closer to home, some English counties (including Staffordshire) suffered three times their average rainfall in September, according to the Met Office. Flooding in the south of the Moorlands made the local news; across the country the changing weather patterns have slashed farm yields, eroded soils and flooded fields.
With the second worst harvest on record, around £1bn of food production was lost.
Weather is complex, of course, and there are some special factors at play (the world is still in the wetter part of the El Nino/La Nina cycle). But there are some simple underlying figures. For every one degree rise in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture.
According to the internationally respected World Weather Attribution group, the exceptional UK rainfall from October 2023 to March 2024 was made four times more likely by climate change (and 20% heavier).
Ultimately, the only way to prevent these weather patterns becoming even more severe is to stop the pace of global warming – climate mitigation – but as these events show, climate change is already here.
That’s why adaption – making people and places more resilient to the effects of climate change are – has steadily crept up the agenda.
Read more: Spotlight Autumn 2024 - Water, water everywhere, nor any dro...
- Farewell X/Twitter
- Life in The Ravines
- Leek Textile Week
- Climate Expo and Sustainability Conference
- Action West End Family Fun Day
- Show Time
- Warslow and Foxlowe Repair Cafes
- Our AGM - and Ecobrick Progress
- Leek and District Show 2024
- Website Upgrade
- Spotlight Summer 2024 - Renewable Energy on our Turf?
- HuG 2024